Siri was destined for Verizon-powered Android devices before Apple buyout

Before Apple, Siri was Android's mistress

Siri was once the name of a small startup company who developed the voice assistant app now known as Siri. Back in 2009, the now popular iOS application was destined to live out its life on Android... that was until Apple stepped in and bought the company.

The startup had a contract in place with Verizon to pre-install Siri onto every Android phone it carried, and the carrier had even shot a series of commercials hyping the new voice assistant. Steve Jobs had taken notice of the little startup and decided that iOS could not live without exclusive rights to Siri, so he sat down with the startups co-founder Dag Kittlaus and made plans to purchase the company.

Siri as we know it was a very different thing at the time of Apple's acquisition, with the app being based on 2001: A Space Odyssey's HAL computer. The voice was "otherworldly" and full of "dry wit." Apple did what it does best, and refined the software to become the most used virtual assistant today.